


Chiaroscuro

by ashtopop



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Early Mornings, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being with Percy is like walking the forest in Winter—the cold bringing bright, crystalline clarity and deep, undisturbed snow hiding treacherous terrain. Being with Percy is dangerous, not because he once held smoke and cruelty in his eyes, but because sometimes they hold so much more, looking at her as if she were his respite against the blizzard blowing down the mountains outside Whitestone. He consumes her as a fire would its catalyst. She doesn’t know how to handle the weight of him without setting alight, and part of her just wants to burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

In the night Percival smells like black powder and the coming storm, electric current sparking against her where their edges crash. His fingertips leave soot streaks on her pale skin, flexing against her with rough dexterity no nobleman should have. His projects are strewn across his workbench downstairs, methodical attention diverted and devoted to other pursuits. She maps collar and hipbones with all the attention of a ranger, surveying the terrain by traversing it with kiss and touch alike. He is chalked slate, she is inked parchment, and they will never be clean of each other. She comes to know him better than the forests she grew up in, and he knows her in turn.

In the morning, his hair looks translucent where the dim sunlight hits white and his chin is rough with dark stubble he perpetually forgets to shave, his glasses lost in the goose feather blanket that rides down around his waist. His arm is wrapped around her waist, hand curled at the small of her back, their legs entangled and her head under his chin. From her vantage point she sees the the edge of the de Rolo crest where it peeks over his shoulder, sun tree visible in black ink against white skin.

Warm affection surges inside her and she swallows hard, casting a glance around the room. She eases away from his arm, slipping out of his grasp and pulling the sheet with her, wrapping it around herself and padding across the stone floor. The fire has gone cold in the night, and she restarts it with a spark of flint, warming her fingers in its glow. After, she steps out into the hallway, intending to make her way back to her own room. Instead, she catches the eye of the lower housemaid just finishing her morning duties in Cassandra’s room, dustpan and fire poker in hand, and quickly shifts her grimace into a gracious smile.

“Lady Vex’ahlia,” the servant says, curtsying, stiff black dress brushing the stone floor. Vex waves the sentiment away, clutching the thin silk sheet close with her other hand and ignoring the burn at the tips of her ears.

“Um, the fire in here is lit, but if you would… coffee, please?”

“Of course, madam,” the human woman said again, bobbing into another curtsy, her cheeks ruddy with the scandal of finding her master’s companion emerging from his bedroom in the smallest hours. She hurries along the hallway and Vex sinks against the stonework, head pressed to the chilly stone behind her. She wonders if she shouldn’t return to her own room, but stalls, waffling outside his bedchamber in indecision. The servant returns quickly, handing her a silver platter with a percolating pot of dark coffee and two china cups before scurrying away to her duties. Vex looks down at the cups, murmuring her thanks, the decision made for her.

The room is beginning to warm, sunrise lighting the Whitestone winter sky to the eerie white of winter morning and hoarfrost melting from the windowpanes. She sets their coffee on the inlaid side table and pours a cup for herself in silence, throwing another log into the brazier on her way by.

She sits at the window seat adjacent to the bed. Looking away out the window to the wintery landscape, she sighs into her steaming cup. In the distance chimneys plume smoke in fits and starts as the days fires are started. The Temple of Pelor rings for prayer, and the smell of fresh bread tempts all with the bakers' early morning labors. It isn’t Greyskull Keep, but Whitestone is beginning to feel like home.

She glances over her shoulder at Percy, the blanket around him rising with his deep and steady breaths, and wonders if he will stay in Whitestone, when it’s all over. Percy, ever concerned about the hallmarks and duties of lordship even as he called himself “the spare," would surely feel the need to continue the de Rolo line and rub shoulders with those of his own class, especially those who might benefit the diplomatic or trade pursuits of a recovering Whitestone. The city is his, by right, but he is also theirs. She ignores the intense ache in her chest at the thought, staring into the deep brown of her coffee with a frown.

Being with Percy is like walking the forest in Winter—the cold bringing bright, crystalline clarity and deep, undisturbed snow hiding treacherous terrain. Being with Percy is _dangerous,_ not because he once held smoke and cruelty in his eyes, but because sometimes they hold so much more, looking at her as if she were his respite against the blizzard blowing down the mountains outside Whitestone. He consumes her as a fire would its catalyst. She doesn’t know how to handle the weight of him without setting alight, and part of her just wants to burn.

"Come back to bed," he says, eyes fluttering closed against the light, dark lashes sweeping against his cheekbones and voice low and hoarse with sleep. She startles, turning from her seat at the window, sheet falling from her shoulder and hair like ink tumbling down her back, loosened from her usual braid. He remembers unravelling it in the night, strands like dark silk between his fingers.

Sometimes she doesn't come back to bed, his ranger—instead she haunts the shadows between trees, stalking prey for the hungry and friendless, as she once was. Sometimes he never comes to bed at all—designs unravelling in his mind, his fingers itching to catch up, or busied with the paperwork and politics of restoring the family and city he never expected, nor wanted, to inherit.

“There’s coffee,” she says, taking a sip of her own and ignoring his request. He rubs his hand across his face, groaning and burying his hand in his hair.

“What time is it?” he asks, hand patting the blankets for his glasses.

“Early.” Grasping his glasses with a hand, he sets them on the bedside table rather than sliding them onto his nose.

“Too early. Come back to bed,” he says again, this time turning his head to shield his eyes from the light pouring in the window. She chuckles into her cup, sipping at the remnants of black coffee and setting it aside.

She comes back to bed, settling against him, his arm snaking around her as his breaths even and slow. She isn’t sure what new long shadows will spring from the heights of their happiness, but in his arms in the early morning she can’t bring herself to care what noontime will bring.

**Author's Note:**

> Because self-indulgent in-bed character study is kind of my thing.
> 
> considermehacked on tumblr


End file.
